Mexico: El Tri (The Three-Colored)

After making the apparently unwise decision to hire former England coach (and current Ivory Coast coach) Sven-Goran Eriksson in June 2008, Mexico spent the next ten months digging itself into a hole that endangered its World Cup qualification. The following April, the powers that be turned to 2002 savior Javier Aguirre, and he has since made order out of the chaos. Aguirre isn’t the only throwback who will be on the Mexican side this campaign. He has raised 37-year-old striker Cuauhtemoc Blanco from the dead—or international retirement, if you prefer—and his leadership and experience has helped guide a team that has four players from the squad that won the Under-17 World Cup in 2005. Mexico has been in four straight World Cups and never failed to get out of the group stage. It’s even made it to the quarterfinals twice. Placing its faith in the return of an old coach and a geriatric striker might be unorthodox, but things are done differently in Mexico. Drug cartels chase police out of town, and passages from Borges get scribbled on bathroom walls of Mexico City dive bars. Expect the same combination of grit and eloquence on the pitch.• El Tri, the rock’n’roll version. [YouTube]